1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method and an assembly for assessing of person's cardiorespiratory fitness, which is one of the most significant nominators of human health and longevity.
2. Description of the Related Art
Prior art comprises many ways to assess fitness. Traditionally fitness tests are performed under the supervision of testing personnel. One option is to utilize direct measurement of respiratory gases during a maximal exercise test during which person's maximal oxygen uptake is determined from the analyzed respiratory gases. There are also a great number of methods to assess fitness indirectly under submaximal exercise but these tests as well as maximal exercise tests require testing personnel to conduct and supervise the test. Some of both maximal and submaximal tests can be performed also in field conditions thus not requiring exercise equipment.
Recently free fitness test modes have also been introduced in EP0709058 (Alessandri), U.S. Pat. No. 6,882,955 (Ohlenbusch & Darley), FR2867055 (Quilliet & Billat), US2007/0082789 (Nissila, Niva, Jaatinen & Kinnunen), and by Weyand et al. (2001)). These tests combine measurement of heart rate and speed during user performed exercise where the maximal oxygen uptake is determined e.g., using simple mathematical calculations. Speed can be measured by using accelorometry based measures, by using a satellite navigation system (e.g. global positioning system, GPS) or a local positioning system (e.g. using a WiFi network). Current state of art doesn't however know a method which would evaluate and segment measured data to form an accurate measure of cardiorespiratory fitness but rather only give a rough estimate of person's or animals daily performance. Current state-of-art doesn't either know solution where person's fitness information gathered during a freely performed exercise session, is used to guide a user to a physiological target state. Neither does current state-of-the-art know a method wherein the user's dynamically changing training plan is automatically updated based on his estimated fitness level.
Consequently, this invention introduces a system and method for accurate and sophisticated assessment of person's cardiorespiratory fitness during any user performed exercise session. Accurate assessment is performed by means of data segmentation and evaluation. Estimate of cardiorespiratory fitness can be also utilized in guiding the user during an exercise to reach a preset (set by the user or by an automatic) physiological target state wherein the fitness estimate may have been calculated in the beginning part of the same exercise. Estimate of cardiorespiratory fitness can be also utilized in creating a dynamically changing training plan for the user wherein training plan can be updated if person's fitness level has changed.